pennyspoetryfandomcom-20200214-history
Edward Rushton
Edward Rushton (13 November 1756 - 22 November 1814) was an English poet and social reformer. Life Rushton was born in John Street, Liverpool, the son of Thomas Rushton. He received his early education at the free school of Liverpool, but before he was 11 was apprenticed to a firm of West India shippers. At the age of 16 he showed great intrepidity by guiding his ship into harbour after the captain had given it up for lost.Sutton, 419. He afterwards joined as mate in a slaving expedition to the coast of Guinea. The brutal treatment of the captives induced him to remonstrate with the captain, who threatened to place him in irons for mutiny. A little later the whole of the cargo was seized with malignant ophthalmia, and Rushton lost his own sight by exposing himself in relieving the wretched negroes. On his return he incurred the displeasure of his stepmother, and was driven from home to subsist as best he could on an allowance of four shillings a week. This he managed to do for 7 years, while paying threepence a week to a boy to come and read to him every evening. In 1782 he published a political poem, The Dismembered Empire, condemnatory of the American war. This poem and his fugitive pieces brought him some reputation, which led his father to relent and to establish him and one of his sisters in a tavern in Liverpool. About this time Rushton excited enmity in his native town by his opposition to the slave trade. He published his West India Eclogues in 1787, and afterwards gave assistance to Thomas Clarkson when collecting evidence on the subject. In 1797 he published An Expostulatory Letter to George Washington: On his continuing to be a proprietor of slaves. He relinquished his tavern to take up the editorship, as well as a share in the proprietorship, of the Liverpool Herald, from which he withdrew in 1790, owing to some outspoken remarks of his on the arbitrary proceedings of the Liverpool press-gang. Then he became a bookseller. Again he suffered from the decided part he took in politics at the beginning of the French revolution. He was one of the founders of a literary and philosophical society in Liverpool, and originated the idea of making provision for the indigent blind, afterwards carried out by the establishment of the Liverpool Blind Asylum. In 1806 he collected his scattered poems, a second edition of which, with additions, and including his letter to Washington and an essay on the Causes of the Dissimilarity of Colour in the Human Species, was published in 1824, with a memoir of the author, by the Rev. William Shepherd. In 1807, after 33 years of blindness, his sight was restored through an operation by Benjamin Gibson of Manchester. His wife, Isabella, died in 1811. He died of paralysis three years later, at his residence in Paradise Street, Liverpool, and was buried in St. James's churchyard. His son, Edward Rushton (1796–1851), was a printer and stationer, and a leading member of the reform party in Liverpool. Publications Poetry *''The Dismember'd Empire: A poem''. London: W. Nevett, for J. Johnson / J. Gore, Liverpool 1782. *''West-Indian Eclogues''. London: J. Phillips / W. Lowndes, 1787. *''Neglected Genius; or, Tributary stanzas to the memory of the unfortunate Chatterton''. London: J. Johnson, 1787. *''Lucy's Ghost: A marine ballad''. Liverpool: J. M'Creery, 1800. *''Poems''. London: T. Ostell, 1806. Non-fiction *''Expostulatory Letter to George Washington, of Mount Vernon, in Virginia: On his continuing to be a proprietor of slaves''. Liverpool: 1797; Lexington, KY: John Bradford, 1797. Collected editions *''Poems, and other writings'' (edited by William Shepherd). London: Effingham Wilson, 1824. *''Collected Writings'' (edited by Paul Baines). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Edward Rushton 1756, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 20, 2016. See also *List of British poets References * . Wikisource, Web, Oct. 21, 2016. Notes External links ;Poems *Edward Rushton (1756-1814) info & 9 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830 ;About *Edward Rushton: Who was this blind revolutionary?, BBC, 2014 * Rushton, Edward Category:1756 births Category:1814 deaths Category:18th-century poets Category:19th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:English poets Category:People from Liverpool Category:Poets Category:English sailors Category:Blind poets